


Twenty-Four

by Linsky



Series: Pictures [2]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M, fluff and nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 09:08:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11250015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linsky/pseuds/Linsky
Summary: People start asking Connor about his twenty-fourth birthday as early as that fall.





	Twenty-Four

**Author's Note:**

> A thing that I wrote for no apparent reason, when I had at least three other things I was supposed to be writing, some of which had deadlines. And yet.

People start asking Connor about his twenty-fourth birthday as early as that fall.

“Nah, we’re not doing that,” he says with a smile. He doesn’t bother specifying who “we” means; he and Dylan came out together a couple of years ago. Everyone knows who he’s talking about.

Most people leave it there, but some reporters try to make more of a thing about it. “Are you and Dylan trying to send a message by not looking at your wrists?” one reporter asks, and maybe Connor would have been annoyed five years ago, but he’s been doing this too long to let her get to him.

“We’re just really happy the way things are,” he says.

His parents come up in January on the night before his twenty-fourth. Dylan can’t make it; the ’Yotes have a game. Dylan already gave him his presents last week, anyway—the real one, and the one Connor will be opening tonight.

His parents keep glancing at his wrist over dinner. Connor knows they’ve never been quite comfortable with the way he and Dylan decided things. But it’s been years now, and they don’t say anything about it.

After they leave, before he goes to bed, Connor unwraps the little box from Dylan. It’s a wrist protector, of course: one of the high-end ones, breathable but secure. The kind you can wear for years without ever having to take off.

Connor slides it on. It’s surprisingly easy to wear; almost unnoticeable. He sends Dylan a snap of himself in it, adds a heart, and goes to sleep. The next morning, when he wakes up, he looks at his five texts from Dylan and not at the picture on his wrist.

The next time he sees Dylan, a few weeks later, Dylan seems weirdly fascinated with the protector. He digs his fingers into it while they fuck. They only have a few hours together—they did the thing where they fly into the Denver airport and get a room at the airport hotel—but it feels peaceful afterward rather than rushed, when they lie there breathing in the rare togetherness. Dylan strokes his fingers over the protective band on Connor’s wrist, snapping it a little, like he’s testing that it won’t come off. Connor almost says that he’s already done that, but he puts up with Dylan’s need to test for himself.

“Does it hurt?” Dylan asks, touching light fingertips to the skin next to the band. 

“Nah,” Connor says. “Doesn’t cut off the blood or anything.” Though that should probably go without saying—neither of them would ever wear anything that would interfere with hockey. “You want one like this when it’s your turn?”

“Mm,” Dylan says. “A matching set.” He kisses Connor, and they make out until it’s time to fall asleep so they can wake up early for their flights.

Connor sees Dylan a few more times before Dylan’s birthday in March. Neither the Oilers nor the ’Yotes have a game the night before his birthday, miraculously, and Connor puts together a fancy dinner in Arizona for his parents and Dylan’s and a few of Dylan’s teammates. A lot of their NHL friends are in other cities and can’t make it, but most of them call or text. They get a snap from Hallsy and Ebs, flashing their mismatched wrists on either side of their sleeping daughter, and Connor snorts out loud in the restaurant.

Dylan fucks him that night, desperate in a way Connor doesn’t see from him very often. Dylan’s often eager—they both are, with how little they get to see each other during the season—but tonight he has an edge, like he thinks Connor might slip out from under his hands if he doesn’t hold on tight enough.

“Not going anywhere,” Connor murmurs afterward, stroking a hand up Dylan’s back. Dylan sighs into his hair and wraps a hand around his wrist cover.

Dylan has a game the next day. Connor doesn’t, and he got permission to miss practice to hang around a few extra hours—twenty-fourth birthdays don’t happen every day. He follows Dylan to the rink for morning skate, gets in a workout of his own, and then takes him out to one of his favorite lunch places. Dylan doesn’t say much during lunch, and Connor doesn’t force it. He gets what Dylan’s feeling: even if nothing’s going to change, it could, now, and that takes some getting used to.

He naps with Dylan even though he’s not the one with a game. He doesn’t want to leave Dylan alone just yet. He doesn’t plan to fall asleep, but Dylan clings to him, his breath soft and steady in Connor’s ear, and Connor tips his head as close as he can. Closes his eyes.

When he wakes up, the light’s changed to late afternoon, and there’s faint sobbing coming from the bathroom.

Connor understands what happened without having to think about it. He thinks he should be surprised, but he’s not. It seems obvious in retrospect. Then he thinks he should be offended, but he isn’t that, either. He just feels heavy.

He gets up anyway. He’s breathing harder than usual as he goes toward the bathroom. He feels almost like he’s intruding, even though he’s not, really. It’s good that it’s happening like this—that Connor’s here, where he can hold Dylan and make promises with his hands, his mouth.

If Dylan will let him.

“Dyls?” he says softly, knocking on the door. He hears Dylan’s breathing stutter. Connor’s stomach turns, up and over.

“Can I…” he starts to say, turning the knob, and then the door opens under his hand and he’s looking at Dylan’s tear-streaked face.

Dylan’s eyes are wide. Connor feels everything inside him contract.

“It’ll be okay,” he says. He’s talking too fast. “It’s like we said. It doesn’t change anything. This is—good, I’m yours, we don’t need any stupid pictures to tell us what we—”

“ _Look,_ ” Dylan says, grabbing Connor’s wrist and yanking the protector down. He presses their arms together and—

“What the fuck,” Connor says.

There’s an abstract design on Connor’s wrist. At least, it looks abstract: a few angled lines, going nowhere. Until you place them next to Dylan’s, and then you see the whole picture: a door, set at an angle, with a lock and a tiny little key inside it.

One picture. A match.

“ _Dylan,_ ” Connor says, and Dylan grabs him and bowls them over onto the bed.

Connor lands with Dylan on top of him and their mouths joined together. It feels as miraculous as their first few times: back when they couldn’t believe they could do this, that they were getting away with it. Like something snatched from the hands fate. They aren’t supposed to do this before a game, but Connor’s digging his fingers into Dylan’s ass and they’re breathing the same air and he can’t believe, he never thought—

Dylan slides down the bed and takes Connor’s cock into his mouth, and Connor arches into it and comes in two minutes flat.

They hold each other after, when Dylan’s come is all over Connor’s stomach. “I’m sorry,” Dylan whispers as he runs his fingers along Connor’s ribs. “For looking. I’m sorry.”

“No, I—” Connor wraps his hand around Dylan’s wrist and presses their forehead together, closes his eyes. He feels like he’s been broken apart, like he’s still waiting for the pieces to settle back. “It’s okay. I should have known you would.”

“I’ve never been as good as you at not wanting the things I shouldn’t,” Dylan says, and Connor huffs a laugh. He should be feeling good now—should be perfect, on top of the world, except that—

“Would it have mattered?” he blurts out. “If they hadn’t matched?”

“Well, I probably wouldn’t have told you about it,” Dylan says, and Connor jerks back, puts a gap between them. “No!” Dylan says, lurching forward. “No, it wouldn’t have changed anything. I just—I needed to see—”

“If we were for real?” Connor says.

“No. Fuck, Connor, no.” Dylan lets his head fall onto the bed, looking at Connor. “It was like…” He stretches a hand across the space between them, but lets it drop before it reaches Connor. “You know when you’re injured, and you know it’s gonna look super gross under the bandage, but you have to look anyway?”

“Yeah,” Connor says.

“It was like that,” Dylan says. “I just had to—” He sighs. “I just had to see how much fate had fucked up with us.”

Connor lets out a laugh, startled. It changes Dylan’s face: melts the lines away, makes him instantly hopeful, lighter.

“You are such an idiot,” Connor says. He reaches out to touch Dylan’s face, the soft part where his cheek curves around his mouth. Dylan smiles under his fingers, sweet, helpless.

“Hey, you’re the one who’s been stuck with me for the last five years,” he says, and Connor pulls him over and kisses him, again and again and again.


End file.
